Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
iDance
I play iDance, a Stepmania/DDR spinoff at a local fitness facility, American Family, and I happened to run into someone I hadn't recalled seeing before who seemed pretty good. She's probably the best parent I've ever seen at rhythm dancing games. Something seemed peculiar, so she introduced herself and then I recalled awestruck that she was the mom of Amanda, the girl who used to manage the ITG and Stepmania machines at Virginia Center Commons.
Naturally, a parent enthusiastic enough to let her child be so active in such a widespread internet community should be decent at this game, so we played a few rounds and I noticed she had been taking note of the songs and charts she preferred which I thought was pretty cool. She said she had played here a few times in fall of last year, but it seems she's getting back into it. Being late May nearing Summer, I'll probably be going to the workout more and maybe have a buddy.
Awkward as it may seem, it's good company to have someone playing a game that's been on a decline over the past few years regardless of the age. Despite the age difference, she kept up well. We both come from using the bar, so the grades we get are unusually low on harder songs.
The grading system for iDance has a much wider scale which I personally favor. I also applaud the variety of charts and happen to have met a few of the musicians that contributed to the game.
Here's a sample of the song wheel in multiplayer mode.
The sensitivity and feedback just don't compare to ITG or DDR though. Logitech Wireless technology seriously doesn't cut it when it's a -cough- RHYTHM -cough- game... which brings me back to gameplay.
Song difficulty is scored on a scale of 1 to 25. I've found that 1-10 is for beginners, 11-15, is intermediate, 16-19 is difficult, 20-21 is more difficult, 22-23 is exhausting, and 24-25 is "Why would you put this in the game without a bar?" Yeah.
I also find it hard to judge difficulty, because the time frame is thick enough compensate for the wireless lag. There are basically 4 judgments you can receive on a note: Gold Star, Green Star, Blue Star, or a Black Star. This parallels to Perfect, Great, Good, or a Miss with the exception that a Blue Star retains your combo (correct me if I'm wrong). One more thing; Technically you can have up to 16 players, but my gym usually only has 2 or 3 pads out at a time.
I find that it's hard to get younger players to join in when you make the game look easy. I genuinely feel like this game needs a revival. There are way too many console war games these days. And parents think their kids are getting an exercise with the Wii? Jesus.
Anyway, I guess this wraps my day up... and quite a few days in the past week or two. If you find an iDance and like it, tell me what you think :)
Naturally, a parent enthusiastic enough to let her child be so active in such a widespread internet community should be decent at this game, so we played a few rounds and I noticed she had been taking note of the songs and charts she preferred which I thought was pretty cool. She said she had played here a few times in fall of last year, but it seems she's getting back into it. Being late May nearing Summer, I'll probably be going to the workout more and maybe have a buddy.
Awkward as it may seem, it's good company to have someone playing a game that's been on a decline over the past few years regardless of the age. Despite the age difference, she kept up well. We both come from using the bar, so the grades we get are unusually low on harder songs.
The grading system for iDance has a much wider scale which I personally favor. I also applaud the variety of charts and happen to have met a few of the musicians that contributed to the game.
Here's a sample of the song wheel in multiplayer mode.
The sensitivity and feedback just don't compare to ITG or DDR though. Logitech Wireless technology seriously doesn't cut it when it's a -cough- RHYTHM -cough- game... which brings me back to gameplay.
Song difficulty is scored on a scale of 1 to 25. I've found that 1-10 is for beginners, 11-15, is intermediate, 16-19 is difficult, 20-21 is more difficult, 22-23 is exhausting, and 24-25 is "Why would you put this in the game without a bar?" Yeah.
I also find it hard to judge difficulty, because the time frame is thick enough compensate for the wireless lag. There are basically 4 judgments you can receive on a note: Gold Star, Green Star, Blue Star, or a Black Star. This parallels to Perfect, Great, Good, or a Miss with the exception that a Blue Star retains your combo (correct me if I'm wrong). One more thing; Technically you can have up to 16 players, but my gym usually only has 2 or 3 pads out at a time.
I find that it's hard to get younger players to join in when you make the game look easy. I genuinely feel like this game needs a revival. There are way too many console war games these days. And parents think their kids are getting an exercise with the Wii? Jesus.
Anyway, I guess this wraps my day up... and quite a few days in the past week or two. If you find an iDance and like it, tell me what you think :)
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Where I lie
In the realm of Stepmania, never at one point did I flourish into a proactive Simfile Artist. I do encourage the idea though, especially since worldwide game-play seems to be at a decline. I'm not the most influential player of the scene, but I've still got some skill, but ever since FFR's fall I play casually more than competitively since I'm inconsistent and just pop up the program whenever I'm bored.
Recently I've been getting back into Stepmania Solo 6-key.
Speed: C850, Distant, Noteskin: Orbular, Background: 0%, Theme: Xoon 4
My Solo skill peak probably was reached around December, but I'm working my way back up. At this point of skill, you can never really see how good you are until you warm up. It doesn't seem that you'd need it, since it's just a game, but it's actually quite parallel to physical sports. You need intense hand-eye coordination, and you have to execute reflexes in a snap, your finger flexibility must be prime, and surprisingly-- in my opinion --having a sturdy bicep/tricep build will assist you in jacks. These prereqs don't come with just one 2 minute warmup.
So I've devised a set of warmup songs for my level! I don't have one fully set out for solo songs but I do have a partial idea for Singles.
1. Dumpstream (heavy) 1250M; <15cb
2. Cruel Whole 1150M; <20cb
3. One More Lovely 1110M; <10cb
4. Cynthia (oni) 1010M; FC
5 Ageha AAA; <4p
It's definitely not complete, and it's subject to change, but this is the plan. I get my fingers moving for some jumpstream on Kommisar's "Dumpstream" (he made the simfile and the song) to get a feel for the keys, and slightly faster regular stream later on. The difference between the heavy and oni is that at the fast part, the heavy takes out the jumps at the fast part.
Following that, I get some wrist jacks in. No particularly difficult patterns here, but I feel that the jackhammer transitions will help me on the songs where there's some spontaneous jacks that determine whether I get an A or a AA. This Zaghurim file is pretty old, but I always used it to hone my jacking technique. However, this could be substituted for "I Am Maid" which focuses on jump jacks not quite as fast as this, or possibly "Maid of Fire" which includes a more varied selection of patterns.
Transitioning back to an all out jumpstream fest, Toph's One More Lovely (oni) gets me back in gear to the more traditional mid-tier simfile. There really is nothing too interesting in this file besides its relentless spewing of arrows but somehow Toph manages to make it fun and playable. Substitutable files may be Cetaka's One More Lovely if I ever manage to reach that level during a warmup session, or possibly above average difficulty Xoon files.
I put Cynthia next because it's a file I should be able to FC consistently, but I miss occasionally. I'll probably substitute this with anything I can get 98mil+ on that I should be Full Comboing or close to AAAing.
Ageha is just the timing song slot. No difficult or unique patterns here. If I can get <10perfects on a song I could substitute that in for here. I put this 5th in the warmup because I already have a feel for the keys so I should be responsive enough to get a good grade on a MA song.
Additionally, in my warmup I may change up some mods just to see how I fare or increase the judge to about 5 to 7 just to see how I do.
Recently I've been getting back into Stepmania Solo 6-key.
Speed: C850, Distant, Noteskin: Orbular, Background: 0%, Theme: Xoon 4
My Solo skill peak probably was reached around December, but I'm working my way back up. At this point of skill, you can never really see how good you are until you warm up. It doesn't seem that you'd need it, since it's just a game, but it's actually quite parallel to physical sports. You need intense hand-eye coordination, and you have to execute reflexes in a snap, your finger flexibility must be prime, and surprisingly-- in my opinion --having a sturdy bicep/tricep build will assist you in jacks. These prereqs don't come with just one 2 minute warmup.
So I've devised a set of warmup songs for my level! I don't have one fully set out for solo songs but I do have a partial idea for Singles.
1. Dumpstream (heavy) 1250M; <15cb
2. Cruel Whole 1150M; <20cb
3. One More Lovely 1110M; <10cb
4. Cynthia (oni) 1010M; FC
5 Ageha AAA; <4p
It's definitely not complete, and it's subject to change, but this is the plan. I get my fingers moving for some jumpstream on Kommisar's "Dumpstream" (he made the simfile and the song) to get a feel for the keys, and slightly faster regular stream later on. The difference between the heavy and oni is that at the fast part, the heavy takes out the jumps at the fast part.
Following that, I get some wrist jacks in. No particularly difficult patterns here, but I feel that the jackhammer transitions will help me on the songs where there's some spontaneous jacks that determine whether I get an A or a AA. This Zaghurim file is pretty old, but I always used it to hone my jacking technique. However, this could be substituted for "I Am Maid" which focuses on jump jacks not quite as fast as this, or possibly "Maid of Fire" which includes a more varied selection of patterns.
Transitioning back to an all out jumpstream fest, Toph's One More Lovely (oni) gets me back in gear to the more traditional mid-tier simfile. There really is nothing too interesting in this file besides its relentless spewing of arrows but somehow Toph manages to make it fun and playable. Substitutable files may be Cetaka's One More Lovely if I ever manage to reach that level during a warmup session, or possibly above average difficulty Xoon files.
I put Cynthia next because it's a file I should be able to FC consistently, but I miss occasionally. I'll probably substitute this with anything I can get 98mil+ on that I should be Full Comboing or close to AAAing.
Ageha is just the timing song slot. No difficult or unique patterns here. If I can get <10perfects on a song I could substitute that in for here. I put this 5th in the warmup because I already have a feel for the keys so I should be responsive enough to get a good grade on a MA song.
Additionally, in my warmup I may change up some mods just to see how I fare or increase the judge to about 5 to 7 just to see how I do.
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